But this was not the whole of the evil that attended this imposition, for by this means all spiritual, ministerial gifts were caused to cease in the church; for as they are talents given to trade withal, or manifestations of the Spirit given to profit or edify the church, they will not reside in any subject, they will not abide, if they are by any received, if they are not improved by continual exercise. We see every day what effects the contempt or neglect of them doth produce. Where- fore, this exercise of them being restrained and excluded by this imposition, they i See this volume of the author's works, p. 420.— Ed.
PREFACE TO THE READER. 247
were utterly lost in the church, so that it was looked on as a rare thing for any one to be able to pray in the administration of divine worship, yea, the pretence of such an ability was esteemed a crime, and the exercise of it a sin scarce to be par- doned; yet do I not find it in any of the ancient canons reckoned among the faults for which a bishop or a presbyter was to be deposed. But that hereon arose, in those who were called to officiate in public assemblies, as unto the gifts which they had received for the edification of the church in divine administrations, that neg- lect which hath given a fatal wound unto the light and holiness of it, is openly evident; for when the generality of men of that order had provision of prayers made for them, which they purchased at an easy rate, or had them provided for them at the charge of the people, they were contented to be at rest, freed from that labour and travail of mind which are required unto the constant exercise and improvement of spiritual gifts. This imposition was the grave wherein they were buried ; for at length, as it is manifest in the event, our Lord Jesus Christ being provoked with their sloth and unbelief, did withhold the communication of such gifts from the generality of those who did officiate in divine worship. And hereby they lost, also, one great evidence of the continuance of his mediatory life in heaven for the preservation of the church.
It is known that this was and is the state of things in the Roman church with reference unto their whole worship in their public assemblies; and, therefore, al- though they have indulged divers enthusiasts, whose revelations and actings, pre- tended from the Holy Spirit, have tended to the confirmation of their superstitions, and some of them have ventured at notions about mental prayer which they under- stand not themselves, yet as unto free prayer by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, in the church assemblies or otherwise, they were the first, and continue to be the fiercest opposers of it: and it is their interest so to be; for shake this foundation of the imposition of an entire system of humanly-devised prayers for the only way and means of the worship of the church, and the whole fabric of the mass, with all the weight of their religion (if vanity and imagination may be said to have any weight) which is laid thereon, will tumble into the pit from whence it came. And, therefore, I must here acquaint the reader that the first occasion of writing this discourse was the perusal of Mr Cressy's preface to his Church History,1 wherein, out of a design to advance the pretended mental prayer of some of his enthusiasts, he reflects with much contumely and reproach upon that free praying by the aids of the Spirit of God which we plead for; and he will find that all his pretences are examined in the latter part of this discourse.
But notwithstanding these things, those of the Roman church do at this day boast themselves of their devotions in their prayers private and public, and have prevailed thereby on many, disposed unto a compliance with them by their own guilt, ignorance, and superstition. The vanity of their pretence hath been well detected, by evincing the idolatry whereby all or the most of their devotions are vitiated and rendered unacceptable. But this also is of weight with me, that the provision of the system and order of their whole devotion, and its exercise, are ap- parently composed and fitted unto the exclusion of the whole work of the Spirit of God in prayer; and yet do they continue under such an incredible delusion as to oppose, revile, and condemn the prayers of others who are not of their communion, on this consideration, that those who make them have not the Holy Spirit nor his aids, which are all confined unto their church ! But if any society of men in the world maintaining the outward profession of Christian religion can do more to exclude the Holy Ghost and all his operations, in prayer and divine worship, than
• Hugh Paul in cle Cressey was a noted controversialist in defence of Popery, and, among other pro- ductions devoted to this object, wrote two treatises in reply to Stillingfleet. The work to which Owen alludes is entitled, " Church History of Britain ; or, England from the Beginning of Christianity to the Norman Conquest," and was published in 1668.— Ed.
248 PREFACE TO THE READER.